


all my past lives got nothing on me

by kathillards



Series: ad infinitum [6]
Category: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 14:07:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11693247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathillards/pseuds/kathillards
Summary: In another world, Nico Saiba wins the match against Emu, and (almost) never meets the doctors of CR.





	all my past lives got nothing on me

He looks annoyed. Not just mildly, but really, properly annoyed. He had been so energetic and confident during the game, but as soon as the numbers scrolled across the screen declaring her the winner, his entire body deflated.

Nico doesn’t care. “I did it!” she screams, launching herself at the mediator to snag her trophy. “I did it, I did it!”

“Congratulations,” Emu says when she calms down enough to look at him for the traditional post-game handshake. His eyes are flickering, brows knitted, face dark. Still, he summons up a smile. She would commend his sportsmanship, if she cared.

“How’s it feel?” she taunts, holding the trophy above her head. “Beaten by a twelve-year-old?”

Emu’s eyes flash red.

For one split, horrifying second, real fear creeps down her spine, a chill through her body. For one moment, he’s not who she thought he was – not the twenty-year-old genius gamer, but something else, something entirely different. Otherworldly.

Then it fades, back to brown. He manages another forced smile for the crowd, then turns on his heel and leaves without offering his hand.

Nico watches him go, thinks she probably wouldn’t have stuck around either, if she had lost.

Good thing she hadn’t.

.

Six years later, she’s walking through the street concentrating harder on the video game in her hands than on where her feet are. She doesn’t see him till he nearly runs her over.

“Hey, watch where you’re going!” Nico complains, stumbling back and frowning up at the man. He’s tall and lanky, with a soft face that’s hardened by a scowl, and skunk-striped hair. He barely glances at her before scoffing and shoving past her.

“Just because you have a bad hair dye job doesn’t mean you have to be so rude!” Nico calls after him.

This stops him in his tracks, and he turns his head to look back at her, like he can’t believe she has the nerve. He still doesn’t say anything.

Nico rolls her eyes and turns away. She has a level to beat, anyway.

.

She finds out Emu is working at a hospital now, fighting these video game Bugsters or whatever the deal with that is. Some small part of her is curious enough to see where the boy she’d trounced all those years ago ended up, and she’s walking past the hospital just in time to see him run out, a nurse at his side.

“Hey,” Nico calls, and he skids to a stop in front of her, frowning in confusion. “Are you still genius gamer M?”

Emu stares at her for a long, uncomfortable moment. His eyes are still warm brown. Nico doesn’t know why she feels relieved at that.

He says, “Who are you?”

Nico feels her lips twist down. How could he not remember her? She had been his greatest adversary, and his worst loss.

“Genius gamer N,” she says, lifting her chin up defiantly. “I beat you six years ago, and then you just disappeared from the gaming world. I thought I’d come see what you were up to.”

Disdainfully, she glances at the nurse who’s hovering by his side, wearing pink and yellow. She’s murmuring something about, “Emu, we have to go, the Bugster – ”

“Oh,” Emu says, bringing Nico’s attention back to him. His brow is still furrowed; he barely even looks like the gamer she had won against. Softer now, less sharp and angry and dangerous. Less confident, even. Less…

Inhuman.

“I’m sorry, I have to go,” he tells her, sounding almost really apologetic. “Good luck with your games!”

And then he’s off like a shot with that nurse, and two minutes later, another doctor with the same lab coat and same stethoscope around his neck follows them. Nico glances at him, but he doesn’t even notice her, so she figures it’s not worth her time.

.

She has to play Kamen Rider Chronicle. Of _course_ she has to. She’s the best gamer in the country, and there’s nothing she loves more than a new challenge.

The first time she morphs into a ride player, she gets tackled out of the way by one of the rare Kamen Riders – one called Snipe.

“Hey, watch it, what are you doing?” she demands, batting him off, and something in her voice gives him pause because he stops attempting to push her off the battlefield and just stares at her. Through the helmet, she can’t tell what he’s thinking.

“Kamen Rider Chronicle is dangerous to play,” he snaps at her finally in a low, angry voice. “You’ll only get hurt. Get out of the way and let us handle it.”

“No way!” Nico hops up on her tip-toes to look him in the eye, helmet-to-helmet, and pokes a finger into his chest. “I’m gonna beat this game and you can’t stop me just ‘cause you’ve got your fancy Kamen Rider gear.”

With that, she grabs his weapon and goes for the Bugster’s throat. That Poppy Pipopapo girl _had_ said it was okay to steal weapons from the rare Kamen Riders, right?

.

“You have Game Disease,” Emu’s saying, but she can hardly hear him because her whole body is shaking from the jolts of pain. “We’re gonna take you back to CR, okay?”

“I don’t need help!” Nico huffs, smacking his hands away. Emu draws back, startled, and the two others behind him stare at her as if she’s being a nuisance. So what if she is? She doesn’t need to be _treated_ by the guy whose butt she kicked all those years ago.

“If we don’t cure your game disease,” begins one of the other doctors, but Nico scowls at him and he shuts up.

“You’re being ridiculous,” snaps the third one, the one with the skunk-striped hair, and before she can level her glare on him, he’s stormed forward and scooped her up.

“Put me down!” Nico demands, kicking at him. “You have no right to – ”

“You’re just another bratty kid who thinks she knows everything,” he says, words sharp and biting. “We’re trying to _help_.”

Nico stares at him, anger bubbling up inside her, but he’s looking straight ahead and seems content to ignore her, so instead she kicks him again. He doesn’t wince, but it helps soothe her.

.

“How come you guys get to be the fancy rare Kamen Riders?” she complains, eyeing their – what was it, Gamer Drivers? – as she sits on the bed in CR, refusing to lie down. “How do we level up to that?”

“You can’t,” Hiiro says, with a roll of his eyes. She hates how he always seems to be talking down to everyone. Usually, people talk down to her because she’s short, and a girl, but he’s this condescending with everyone. “We’re actual Kamen Riders.”

“So am I,” Nico insists, shoving her Gashat at him. “We morph the same way. We fight the same enemy. How am I not a Kamen Rider?”

“Because you’re a Ride Player and you’re being manipulated by Genm Co. into doing this,” Taiga drawls, not even glancing up from his laptop to look at her. She doesn’t know what he’s doing – running charts on her, or analyzing battle footage, but whatever it is, he irritates her.

“And you’re not?” she shoots at him, then whirls around to glare at Emu. “You – you used to be a gamer. And now you’re a doctor fighting these video game creatures? You’re telling me no one plucked you from the video game world and manipulated you into doing this?”

He frowns at her, confused again. Always confused. “What do you mean? No one forced me to become a doctor. Or a Kamen Rider.”

Nico ‘hmph’s. “Seems fishy to me.”

Emu looks at her like her words have unraveled him, his eyes unfocused – still brown – and his hands curling into fists at his side. Nico turns away from him and back to Taiga, narrowing her eyes and trying to pinpoint his weakness.

She hadn’t become the best gamer in the country by letting other people walk all over her, after all.

“Why does he call you ‘licenseless doctor’?” she asks, jerking her head at Hiiro.

Taiga glowers at her. “None of your business.”

“I’m your patient, aren’t I? I think I deserve to know if you have a license or not.”

“Technically, you’re _his_ patient,” Taiga says, nodding at Emu. “He’s the one who saved you.”

Nico frowns harder. “Not true. You pushed me out of the way first. So that makes _you_ my doctor.”

“I don’t want to be your doctor.”

“Too late.”

“He doesn’t have a license,” Hiiro mutters.

Nico sets her shoulders and shoots Hiiro a glare. “Too. Late.”

.

“Promise me you won’t play this game again,” Taiga says with a sigh after the biking Bugster lies defeated again. He’s demorphed, hair falling into his eyes, his whole body looking tired. She wonders how he gets the energy up to fight the monsters all the time, for so long.

“But if I play and win – ” she starts to protest.

Taiga shakes his head. “Nico,” he says, voice softer. “You could _die_. Pallad is out here killing people. There are no continues in this game.”

Nico crosses her arms stubbornly, but there’s nothing else she can say. It had been scary, being struck with the Game Disease. Facing up to that monster and knowing she didn’t have enough levels to beat him. She’d never gone into a video game that unprepared before.

“Fine,” she huffs. “For now. But I’m gonna work harder and I’m gonna level up and then I’m coming for these Bugsters.”

Taiga squints at her. “Have they taken your friends?”

“No.” Nico juts her chin out. “Gaming is my life. I’m the best gamer in the country, so you better remember that.”

Taiga’s lips almost quirk in a smile. “Just be careful out there.”

Nico pauses, debates with herself for a moment, then nods at where Emu and Hiiro are standing a few feet away. Lowering her voice, she says, “There’s something wrong with him.”

“Emu?” Taiga asks, swiveling to look. “There’s a lot wrong with him.”

“No, I’m being serious,” Nico says, hitting him in the arm. Taiga frowns at her and rubs the spot she’d hit. “He’s possessed or something. I know it. I _saw_ it. Back when I beat him at that video game tournament six years ago. He had glowing red eyes.”

Taiga looks thoughtful. “He had Game Disease, too, but… we’ll see.”

“Be careful around him,” Nico adds, turning on her heel to walk away. “He’s dangerous.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Taiga says to her back, and she swears there’s a smile in his voice.

.

She doesn’t see them again for a while. Her parents get freaked out by the monster attacks, and although she begs and pleads, they uproot themselves to her aunt and uncle’s house just outside of the city where, supposedly, she’ll be more safe.

Nico still watches their fights on the television. It’s different now, knowing who’s beneath the masks – Emu, with his red eyes, Hiiro, with his ever-disdainful expression, and Taiga, with his skunk-striped hair. And another one, Poppy, that she assumes is that nurse who was always with Emu. And then there’s more, of course – Lazer, Zombie, Para-DX, Chronus. Some good, some bad.

She watches Taiga more than the rest. Memorizes his battle movements so she can practice them later. Uses her gashat to turn into a Ride Player just so she can pretend she’s out there on the field with them.

“Don’t you think it’s sad?” her little cousin asks her one day. “Pretending you’re a Kamen Rider?”

“I am a Kamen Rider,” Nico huffs. “Just like them.”

But she can’t get rid of the feeling that she should be more than this. More than watching the Riders on the television from a city far away. Can’t help but think, if she’d had had a better reason to stay, her parents would have let her. If she’d had had a friend in the city… if she’d been fighting Bugsters with all of them.

Still, even she can’t do anything from here. So Nico sits and waits out the end of the world, and can’t help but think that if she were there, she would be the best damn Ride Player they’ve ever seen.

.

.

.

“Hey,” Taiga says suddenly, on their way to find Graphite. “You still with me?”

Nico turns to look at him, the wind whistling around the three of them, her backpack weighing heavy on her shoulders as she walks. Hiiro stays a few feet in front of them, allowing them some modicum of privacy. Taiga’s hair is falling loose in the breeze, his gaze soft and searching as he watches her.

“Yeah,” she says, tugging the straps of her backpack tighter. “Yeah, of course I am. You can’t do this without me.”

Taiga stares at her for a moment, and then a smile crosses his face, warm and genuine. “You got that right.”

Nico smiles back at him and then turns to face her destiny. Their destiny. Graphite is waiting on top of a cliff, the sun bleeding orange and gold all around them. She takes a deep breath, and follows after Hiiro.

She’s the best Ride Player in the country, and damn if she’s letting any one of these Bugsters take Taiga from her.

They don’t call her genius gamer N for nothing.


End file.
